


Mistletoe Mayhem

by easilydistractedbyfanfic



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Christmas Fluff, Delinquents, F/M, Friendship, Holidays, Minor Character(s), Mistletoe, as fluffy as I get
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-24
Updated: 2019-12-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 06:08:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21928744
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/easilydistractedbyfanfic/pseuds/easilydistractedbyfanfic
Summary: Much to Raven's dismay, Octavia gets a little crazy with the mistletoe this year.AKA I felt the need to try the mistletoe trope out for myself!
Relationships: John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	Mistletoe Mayhem

**Author's Note:**

> A Safe & Happy Holiday season to the many wonderful readers who take the time to check out my stories! I appreciate each and every kudos and comment and you all have helped to make my 2019 a brighter place! The holidays have kept me busy and I have had a few family setbacks with some unexpected funerals these last two months, but I have been getting some sporadic writing in and absolutely plan on finishing my two current WIPs. Thanks for sticking with me!

* * *

We stood there kissin' by the mistletoe

Tingle, tingle

Mmm and away we go, jingle, jingle

Oh, kissin' by the mistletoe, love came to stay

And now it's Christmas every day

~ Aretha Franklin

  
  


_It figures_ , Raven thinks, _just when she’d actually been looking forward to a holiday event, someone has to go and ruin it_. She glares dangerously at Octavia’s retreating form as her friend slips into the kitchen, laughing at Raven’s grumpy mumblings. 

Alright, so maybe she was being too hard on Octavia, considering she didn’t know the real reason Raven was so uncomfortable with the bunches of mistletoe hung throughout the rooms. Octavia and her boyfriend, Lincoln, had invited everyone over for a cookie exchange and decorating party, and they’d gone all out in making their apartment festive. As far as Raven was concerned, everything looked great until her eyes landed on the first clump of those stupid green branches. And then she realized it was practically everywhere - hung in every doorway, over the couch, and god it was even dangling over each stool at the damn breakfast bar!

She was somehow the first guest to arrive, so she was put to work setting out tubes of icing and sprinkles on the dining room table while O had explained Lincoln was out getting more eggnog as she hurriedly poured some pretzels into a bowl on the coffee table and placed a pretty plate of fudge next to it. Raven had pasted a smile on her face until Octavia went back into the kitchen, and then Raven had stood on a dining room chair and had almost managed to yank down one nasty cluster of the stuff when Octavia had shrieked and almost scared her into falling. 

“You let go of that right now, Raven Reyes, or I’ll make sure you regret it!”

Raven scowled at her old friend. “I hate this horrible tradition! Why do you have so _much_ of it? You can kiss Lincoln any time you want - you don’t need any stupid mistletoe to do it!”

“Oh, what’s the big deal?” Octavia arches her eyebrows. “It’s there for a reason, so don’t you be touching it! You know Jasper only recently started dating Maya, and I have it on good authority that he hasn’t worked up the nerve to kiss her yet. So there’s one couple.” She touches one finger to another and then adds a second one. “And then I’m pretty sure Miller is really close to proposing to his boyfriend, so I wanna give him plenty of opportunity. Plus, you and Echo both have been in something of a dating slump lately and there’s a few single guys coming from Lincoln’s work, so you never know.”

Octavia grins triumphantly, like she’s doing Raven a favor, and Raven doesn’t have the heart to tell her the truth and ruin her fun. Instead, she smothers a sigh and offers a small smile while she lies through her teeth. 

“Fine, you win. It’s not a bad idea and I’m sure it won’t be as awful as I think it will.”

“Exactly! It’s gonna be fun, just you wait!”

A half hour later, Raven is borderline murderous. Octavia is like a damned drill sergeant with the mistletoe, seemingly with eyes in the back of her head as she misses nothing and no one is safe. So far Raven has kissed Clarke, Monty and some friend of Lincoln’s who’s been following her around ever since. And Octavia’s a stickler too, telling everyone it doesn’t count unless they at least give each other a peck on the lips, so most people have been good-natured about it and have given in, making Raven look like a grinch if she doesn’t go along. 

It wouldn’t be so bad, probably, if only Octavia was completely right about Raven’s reluctance. Yeah, she had been in a dating slump, it was true, but she’d blamed it mostly on being busy with work or just not meeting any quality guys, because the truth was a little harder to acknowledge. She’d gone and developed _feelings_ for one of their mutual friends, and she was so annoyed with herself over it that she could barely think straight. She hadn’t told anyone about it, and her relationship with John Murphy was too important to her to screw up, so she’d decided she’d suck up the messy feelings he stirred in her and ignore things til they went back to normal. And so far she’d been managing just fine, thank you! Sure, it wasn’t easy and in fact she’d actually had to distance herself a little in order to stay sane, so they hadn’t spent as much time together as usual. But she could get through this party and hadn’t been too concerned until she’d noticed all the mistletoe. 

The very idea that she’d be caught under it with Murphy, and might give herself away if she had to kiss him… No, just no. Raven grits her teeth and promises herself that she’ll be able to avoid the possibility as long as she stays away from Murphy once he arrives, but in her distraction she sits down on the couch and Octavia yells out from across the room. 

“Ah, Raven, you’re caught again! Now you have to kiss Echo!”

Raven rolls her eyes and Echo laughs, amused at Raven’s reaction, neither one noticing the apartment door opening to let in Jasper and Maya, with Murphy right behind them. 

“Christmas has _definitely_ come early,” Jasper laughingly shouts as soon as his eyes land on the two kissing women, his eyes comically wide. 

“There wasn’t even tongue, Jasper, so don’t get too excited,” Echo winks. 

Murphy hands Lincoln his coat and a large tin of what are undoubtedly cookies, crossing over to the coffee table to pop a piece of fudge in his mouth before he flops down onto the empty cushion next to Raven. “What kind of party _is_ this though?”

This time Octavia practically screeches with glee, her hands clapping together as Raven’s stomach sinks. Damn it, he hasn’t even been here five minutes and it’s already happening. 

“Mistletoe, Murphy! Now _you_ have to kiss Raven! And on the lips or it doesn’t count!”

Murphy looks up at the ceiling, chewing thoughtfully before turning towards her with an unreadable look in his eye. “Seriously? Everyone agreed to this?”

Raven huffs out a pained breath. “Since when does Octavia _ask_? But yeah, everyone’s been going along with it, and believe me when I tell you it’s practically unavoidable. Let’s just get it over with.”

“Always knew you were a romantic, Reyes,” Murphy retorts, but he leans towards her as he says it, and Raven is acutely aware of the various people paying close attention to what’s happening between them. 

“Whatever,” Raven mumbles, mostly to disguise her pounding heartbeat as she surges forward to place her lips on his. It should only last a second, but her curiosity makes her linger longer than that, and while she wouldn’t consider it as truly a real kiss between them, it definitely wasn’t just a peck either. She pulls away first, desperately wishing she could read Murphy’s mind as she as she tries to keep her expression neutral. 

_Meaningless_ , she tells herself, _just like kissing Clarke or that dude she doesn’t even know the name of_. Kissing Murphy in a lame holiday tradition didn’t mean anything at all, and she could handle it just fine, just like she did everything else in her life. She makes a deliberate effort to sit less stiffly on the couch, ignoring the pleasant way her lips are buzzing as she glances out of the corner of her eye to see that Murphy certainly looks relaxed enough. It was no big deal to him, and it wouldn’t be to her either, though she considers kissing Echo for real when her friend leans forward and demands to know what kind of cookies Murphy brought and when she can have some. It’s easier after that, and Raven realizes how much she’s missed Murphy during her self-imposed isolation when they pick up their normal back-and-forth banter like no time has passed. 

She forgets about the mistletoe for a little bit while everyone is decorating the plain sugar cookies Octavia provided, but then Jasper knocks a container of sprinkles off the table which fly everywhere, and in the chaos, quite a few people end up kneeling on the floor to try and help clean up. 

“Look up, dumbasses!” Octavia crows. “We’re all under the mistletoe at this end of the table! So turn to your left and kiss that person, then kiss the one on the other side to keep it fair!”

Everyone laughs and makes jokes about Octavia being so into everyone kissing and before Raven can even think about crawling under the table to escape, Maya leans in and quickly brushes her lips against Raven’s, much to Jasper’s delight. Raven’s a little astonished by it, to tell the truth, not having thought Maya had it in her, and she doesn’t even notice who’s on her other side until Murphy’s blue eyes are much too close for comfort. 

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this,” he grins, his hand full of red and green sprinkles as he encroaches into her personal space. 

There’s not time to be nervous this go-round, especially since Murphy doesn’t waste any more breath talking and just goes for it, his mouth insistent on hers. They’re kneeling on the floor and Raven thinks no one is really paying much attention this time, everyone preoccupied with kissing someone themselves, so this kiss feels more intimate, more personal. It lasts longer, their lips not just meeting but exploring enough to make her body quiver in reaction. It’s easier to get caught up in it too, and Raven finds herself scrambling for words, for _anything_ to say when Murphy looks at her expectantly after she finally breaks off the kiss. 

“I have to finish decorating my cookies,” she blurts out, getting to her feet as quickly as she can with her knee brace on. Once she does so, she makes a production of asking Miller for the bowl of mini M&M’s near him in order to cover up her discomposure, but she’s not sure it’s working when she feels Murphy’s eyes on her, though she refuses to meet them. That kiss definitely counted, no doubt about it, but she's trying hard not to let her thoughts run away from her with what it could mean. 

They get through the rest of the cookie decorating with only a few more mistletoe incidents that thankfully don’t involve her, and Raven has to admit it _is_ funny when Murphy tries to help clean up by passing Lincoln a platter of cookies while he’s in the kitchen, and Octavia insists that it counts that parts of their bodies were under the doorway mistletoe at the same time, so they have to follow the rules. They’re both good sports about it, though it’s probably the fastest kiss Raven’s ever seen. 

Afterwards they lay out the containers of cookies that they’ve all brought to swap, and it’s no surprise that Murphy’s cookies are voted as the best tasting, though this year Harper wins for prettiest cookies with her red and white iced chocolate cookies in the shape of candy canes. 

Monty and Jasper head out to the beer cooler on the balcony together, and when they come back in, Octavia smiles at them knowingly. 

“I put it out there myself, boys. You know what you have to do.”

Monty groans but the two make a big production out of a tiny kiss, and Harper teases that she always knew she had to watch out for Jasper, which makes everyone laugh. Raven’s starting to feel like maybe the mistletoe _isn’t_ as bad as she thought it would be when she decides to get a drink of her own, remembering that Octavia has a few bottles of wine on the kitchen counter. She makes sure there’s a clear path to the kitchen, not wanting to end up in the doorway with anyone, and carefully makes her way into the empty room without incident. The opened bottle of red wine is almost completely empty, some heathen leaving behind just a few sips, making Raven shake her head in agitation before she reaches for the wine opener and a bottle of another brand that catches her eye. She’s struggling with it when a teasing voice interrupts. 

“You’re terrible at that. Let me do it before you get cork pieces in what we want to drink.”

Murphy’s in the kitchen with her now, eyes laughing at her pitiful attempt to open the wine, and he’s right she _is_ terrible at it so she passes it over without a word and watches as he expertly twists the cork up and out before handing the bottle back to her. 

“Thanks.” Raven grabs a clean wine glass from the counter and pours some for Murphy before filling her own glass, and she’s debating what she should say to him when Octavia slouches in the doorway with a loud snort, her finger pointing up at the ceiling. 

“Gotcha again, dorks!”

Raven looks up and yep, there’s another cluster of the horrid stuff right over the wine bottles. 

“Damn it, Octavia! That wasn’t there earlier,” Raven accuses, taking a menacing step forward, but it doesn’t deter her friend in the slightest. 

“I know,” Octavia laughs, “because I just added it like five minutes ago. Now kiss.”

If it was anyone else in the kitchen with her, Raven might be willing to see the humor in it, but she can’t because it’s _Murphy_. Murphy who she’s already kissed twice tonight and who ties her up in knots just as much as he makes her laugh and drives her crazy. Murphy who she’s known for years and trusts more than anybody but she can’t bring herself to tell him about her feelings out of fear she’ll ruin everything. Murphy who’s looking at her suspiciously as she tugs a hand through her hair in frustration before she straightens her shoulders and stomps closer to him, feeling reckless. 

“What the hell,” she mutters, her hands lifting to either side of his face as she presses her lips to his in the kind of kiss there’s no mistaking. He’s unmoving under her for only a moment before his arms come up to wrap around her and his mouth opens beneath hers, and then Raven has a hard time focusing on what happens next. All she knows is he’s kissing her back, and it’s _definitely_ not the sort of kiss you share with anyone you aren’t interested in. Much of the anxiety inside her disappears as Murphy’s lips slant over hers, and Raven’s pretty sure they might have stayed like that indefinitely, making out against the counter in the kitchen, but then Octavia coughs in a deliberate attempt to get their attention, and Murphy turns his head to glare at her, though he doesn’t loosen his hold on Raven. 

“Merry Christmas,” Octavia gloats, and she spins around to leave but then seems to think better of it, turning back towards them for one more comment before she saunters back to the group. “Consider this my holiday present to both of you.”

“She’s going to milk this one for a while,” Raven says softly, but she can’t bring herself to be mad now that she knows Murphy might be more open to things than she first thought. 

“Yeah, but it’s a pretty good present, so we’ll let her get away with it.”

Murphy grins down at her, and Raven feels happier than she has for a long time. 

“Works for me,” she agrees, tilting her head up for another kiss and Murphy meets her halfway.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed the holiday fluff! Thanks for reading!


End file.
